Public Enemies (2009)

What I expected:

I am a huge fan of the 20’s and 30’s gangster era. I love the cars, the clothes, the glamour and even the senseless brutality, so I was pretty pumped to see Public Enemies. That Johnny Depp is always fantastic, no matter what goes on around him, made me even more excited to see it and the Dillinger story is a good one, so high hopes all around.

What I got:

Public Enemies is a long movie, clocking in well over two hours. That is a long time to keep the audience engaged. Gangster movies like Once Upon a Time in America, the Godfather and Goodfellas have set the bar for long, yet totally engrossing, and you can understand how anybody making a gangster movie would want to follow in that tradition. Unfortunately, Michael Mann who directed this, is no Scorsese or Coppola and he just doesn’t get there. Sure it is long, but he loses you part way through.

The movie tells the story of John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), a Robin Hood-like bank robber character of the American Great Depression. He stole money from the banks but wouldn’t take a dime from the customers. It really is a great story. He robs lots of banks, escapes prison several times, falls in love with a beautiful coat-check girl (Marion Cotillard who played Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose), is loyal to his friends, and is finally taken down by the law through betrayal and investigative zeal. What more could you ask for in a real life storyline.

The first two-thirds of the movie are awesome. The pacing is great. The hero-worship is kept in check and the violence, though significant is appropriate to the narrative. The last third however is hard to explain. Something happened with the cinematography. In the first part of the movie you are treated to the kind of sweeping art-direction you expect from a big-budget Hollywood movie, but in the last part the camera work gets all jerky, handheld, we-are-shooting-C.O.P.S.-like, and it really breaks up the flow. Also the image quality is completely different.

I don’t know much about how films are shot, but if I was to guess, the first part was shot on film, and the C.O.P.S. sequences were shot with digital HD. It was very jarring and weird, and it made the movie look like a behind the scenes bonus feature from a DVD.

Johnny Depp is awesome as Dillinger and Marion Cotillard is just as strong as his love interest, Billie. Christian bale plays the intense and obsessed FBI agent that hunts down Dillinger, and he owns that territory. Billy Crudup is a great J. Edgar Hoover and Lee Lee Sobieski (whom I like very much) makes a cameo appearance towards the end of the movie for no apperant reason, which again jolts you, because she seems stuck in.

I did enjoy Public Enemies, but I would have been fine with just the first two-thirds.  It is a shame that what should have been a great movie ended up just being OK.

Niels Hansen is the co-owner of Hansen Creative Services, a graphic design firm near Columbus, Ohio which specializes in employee communications and small business marketing.